


I Just Want You To Know Who I Am

by mrsmelchiorgabor



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 06:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2057358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsmelchiorgabor/pseuds/mrsmelchiorgabor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: can you do something where one of them has an accident and forgets who the other one is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Just Want You To Know Who I Am

'I'm sorry Mr Gallagher but he has amnesia.'

Ian sighed. ‘But he’s going to remember? It’ll come back?’

'We can't know anything for certain. I don't want to promise something that may not happen. You're free to visit him now, though. He's awake.'

So Ian walked slowly down the corridor, breathing in the harsh chemical smell of the hospital. He just wanted to get to the room and see Mickey, yet he walked slower than ever. He knew that every step he took was a step closer to discovering something terrible.

'Can I come in?', he called, knocking on the door. The man in the bed frowned at him, confused.

'I think you have the wrong room, man,' he said, shrugging blankly.

Ian’s heart almost stopped. ‘Mickey. It’s me. It’s Ian’, he whispered, shocked.

Mickey’s eyes widened. ‘How the fuck do you know my name?’, he said, his tone suspicious and body inching away from Ian in caution, who had now entered the room.

Ian couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘I know your name, Mickey Milkovich, because I have loved you for just shy of eight years.’

'I'm not a fucking fag,' Mickey spat aggressively, but his eyes were fearful.

'You've got to be kidding me,' Ian muttered incredulously. Mickey had reverted back to how he was before coming out. Before even knowing Ian. He walked up close to Mickey and got up close, the words falling slowly but piercingly out of his mouth. 'I don't know what year you think you're in, but back in 2014, you came out. You practically screamed it. Your dad beat the shit out of us, but we won. We went home and showered together and we didn't fuck that night. We kissed with our broken faces and just lay side by side all night. Toe to toe, head to head. I held you. I kissed away your tears. And then, Mickey, then you rested your ear over my chest and you fell asleep listening to my heartbeat.' Mickey was staring at him, paralysed. Ian wondered if he'd gone too far, but he didn't stop. 'I know your name, Mickey Milkovich, because I can't count the number of times I've fucking screamed out your name each time you coaxed my body into an orgasm…which you reciprocated nicely, might I add. Usually I top. But liking what you like don't make you a bitch, isn't that right?'

'I don't know who the fuck you think you are but you need to shut your fucking mouth,' Mickey practically whimpered. Then Ian calmed down a little. He realised that this wasn't Mickey's fault. So he spoke softly and less aggressively.

'I know your name, Mickey Milkovich, because six months ago, we got married. In the park here in Chicago. Our sisters were bridesmaids. Your brothers didn't show up. But mine became yours. Lip was my best man. Kev was yours. And Yev was ring bearer. Your son - our son.' Mickey was speechless. 'He's almost five. And these are the rings he carried down the aisle to us,' Ian said, holding up his hand to show the thick, plain silver band snug on his fourth finger. Then he tentatively reached out to run his thumb over Mickey's identical ring. Mickey instinctively snatched his hand away like Ian's touch burned him. 'In your vows, you told me that you loved me beyond any and all things. And you told me again later, when it was just us, because I still couldn't believe it. It felt like a dream. Because I love you too, Mickey. So, so much,' Ian told him, tears in his eyes, desperate. He clasped Mickey's hand now and held on, his husband's hand, the hand he knew better than his own, as he cried silently.

Mickey stared at their hands, fingering the ring on his finger, frowning. ‘I don’t know where to even begin…they told me I had some amnesia but…how could I forget so much? There’s just, years and years missing. Years with you, apparently. You don’t seem like the sort of guy I could forget’, he whispered.

Ian raised his eyebrows. ‘Was that - are you flirting?’ he almost laughed.

Mickey looked away awkwardly. ‘Look, I know I’m gay. I’ve always known. I never kiss guys. Don’t want them to get attached…well. I don’t want to get attached to them, honestly.’

'You kiss me plenty. All of that playing-it-straight crap went to shit after a couple years with me.'

'Am I really married? To you?' Ian reached for his wallet.

'I'll bring more pictures from home, tomorrow - but I always have this one with me. This is us. Last May.' Ian showed him the little rectangular picture.

'We look good,' Mickey remarked, but the two men in tuxes with matching grins looked like strangers to him. There was a pause. 'Do I really have a kid?'

'Yes. He's here,' Ian said, flipping the pockets of the wallet over and revealing a photo from a year or so ago, of Yev sat on the couch at Ian and Mickey's place. 'Yevgeny. We all call him Yev.'

'What kind of a -'

'Russian.'

'Why?' Ian considered how to answer. 'Who's his mother?'

Ian sighed. ‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you another day.’ Mickey didn’t persist.

'How did we meet?'

Ian smiled. ‘It was 2011. We were still living out our teenage years, though yours were nearly over. You thought I’d - hurt your sister and you just burst into the shop where I used to work, screaming out my name. Wouldn’t be the last time you did that…anyway. We didn’t really meet until I came to your place one morning. We started out fighting, pretty hard, but then you pinned me down and - I just remember our eyes locked and we just stared at each other, and we just knew. And then we were just doing it. Fucking in your twin bed. I was fifteen. Shit.’ He sighed. ‘We kept hooking up in secret. Always rushing through the sex. Terrified of getting discovered. That was more you than me, but still. We didn’t even kiss for, like, two years. Not that I didn’t try. But we used to flirt shamelessly. That was more me than you. You were nothing like anyone I’d ever known. I didn’t think you could exist. But you did. Eventually you seemed to just accept that you wanted me and you weren’t going to deny yourself pleasure anymore. It was literally destroying you, Mick.’

-

Ian had gone to get them both coffee. On the walk back, he reflected. It was still unbelievable. And unfair. But when hadn’t things been with them? He didn’t know how he could tell Mickey everything. Svetlana. Terry. His bipolar. The accident. How could everything about them have been wiped clean out of his head?

As he returned, he was broken out of these thoughts by Mickey’s voice ringing down the corridor. He was…singing? Ian listened.

'And I don't want the world to see me, cos I don't think that they'd understand', Mickey sang, scratchy but pure.

Ian stood in the doorway, frozen. Mickey noticed. ‘Are you ok?’, he asked.

'Mick…why were you singing that song?', he asked in a choked whisper.

Mickey shrugged. ‘I don’t actually know. I seem to remember it from somewhere. And it’s - it’s nice. I guess,’ he said, puzzled. ‘Why?’

Ian stepped inside the room slowly. ‘That was the song we danced to at our wedding. It’s our song, it’s our fucking song’, he said, then sang the next line, voice shaking, ‘when everything’s made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am.’

They didn’t say anything. They just stared at each other, both searching for things that the other didn’t know how to give.

Mickey slowly slipped off the ring and held it. ‘So I can remember our wedding song but not the wedding’, he murmured bitterly.

Ian noticed Mickey’s eyes fill with tears. He knew him well enough to know that any second he would begin crying. He walked over and held Mickey, not caring if the gesture was too sudden - if his husband was crying, he was going to comfort him. Sure enough, Mickey gave a loud sob, then tears fell down his face as he began to cry. Ian absentmindedly stroked his neck, planted little kisses in his hair; it was second nature. ‘Sorry,’ he said after a moment, worrying Mickey would react adversely to the affection.

Mickey shook his head. ‘It’s fine. It’s - nice. That’s not it.’

'Then what?'

‘It’s just…I want to remember it, all of it. Not only for my sake but for yours too, this isn’t fair to either of us’, Mickey sobbed.

Ian nodded. ‘I know. I know’, he said, feeling tears sting his own eyes. After everything they’d been out through, this just felt like the sickest, most fucked up twist of fate.

Mickey slowly turned and looked at Ian. He had somehow ended up curled against Ian’s chest, a familiar position. They were so close; Ian could feel his breath on his neck and it took all the strength he had not to kiss Mickey. It was too soon, it was too soon, he kept telling himself.

But then Mickey reached up, slowly, tracing the outline of Ian’s face. Tentative at first, then coming to cradle Ian’s face in his palm. Mickey’s eyes fell to his lips.

'Oh fuck,' Ian murmured, and gave in. He kissed him hard, and then Mickey returned the kiss, deepened it. Ian's hands ran through Mickey's hair and they really tasted each other. Ian couldn't get enough of him, no matter how familiar he was. That was the beauty of it.

'Your kiss. I've had it before', Mickey said breathlessly.

Ian smiled. ‘My lips are clearly a pretty unforgettable experience’, he smiled through his tears. Mickey laughed.

-

Mickey had fallen asleep in his arms and Ian had stayed, holding him. It reminded him of old times, before the accident. They lay together on the bed, Ian breathing in the same old smell. The blood and the hospital couldn’t erase it; it was, unmistakably, home.

'Ian? Are you awake?', he whispered.

Ian looked down at his husband. ‘Yeah. I’m here.’

'I just want to say. I'm - I'm sorry. You don't deserve this. I can't imagine how hard it must be', he said.

'It's not your fault', Ian began, but Mickey cut across -

'regardless. I'm sorry. And when the doctor sees me tomorrow, I'm going to find out how I can beat this thing - if I can. If I can't, well…', he trailed off, unsure what would happen.

'Then we'll work through it. I vowed to take you in sickness and in health', Ian reminded him. 'God knows you've done that for me. Look, I love you, Mickey. I will always love you. And I know you've forgotten how to love me, but I'll remind you. I want you to remember, to feel it all again', he whispered, kissing his neck.

Mickey smiled. ‘Thank you, firecrotch,’ he muttered as his eyes closed, drifting back into sleep.

Ian’s heart jolted and he closed his eyes, grinning, as more tears came. ‘You’re on your way back, aren’t you,’ he whispered, kissing Mickey’s forehead gently. He didn’t think his old nickname had ever made him cry before.

But that was their relationship. Expect the unexpected. Always.

 

// please like/comment and please send me prompts on tumblr, mrsmelchiorgabor.tumblr.com :) //


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